Friday, June 29, 2012

Brushin' it up

I promised yesterday that I'd show you a wee trick to finish a bad paint job, didn't I?

Our wallpaper is ridiculously ugly. There's some sort of 80ies geometrical pattern going on, and if that's not bad enough, it has raised ridges as well. I'm sure there's a scientific name for this particular kind of visual atrocity, but I dare not google it for fear that my poor, strained eyes just might pop out. Argh.

When we recently painted over that haunting, depressing, utterly disgraceful magnolia every rented abode seems to sport we might have run out of steam a little bit, I must admit. Due to the... ridgy nature of the wallpaper, the first (and only) coat of paint left quite a few patches that looked like this:


Not all that bad from a distance, but once you go near a wall (darn shame the room is small- in a stately mansion you'd probably get away with it without ever coming close to a spotty wall!) it's like our poor house had a bad case of smallpox. Now, my Mum is nothing if not hands- on and she decided this state of affairs needed to change. (did I mention that my embarrassing fear of standing on a ladder prevented me from properly doing the edging under the ceiling as well? Enter motherly love and utter fearlessness)


Yup, that's her. And yeah, that's a plastic bag protecting her hair- do, isn't this what everybody does when painting? I thought so. (by the way, that tattoo on her forearm? One day over a decade ago we just went and got tattooed together, hers is a tribal and the one I got then is a wee Yin Yang... sounds tacky but it represented who we were back then.)

Anyway, I got distracted. Mum was pretty annoyed with the smallpox on the walls, but even attacking them with a proper brush did not really work. Dang ridges.
So she went and got this:



And what can I say, a brush a day keeps the pox away. It worked a treat! I am probably carrying owls to Athens here, but just on the off chance that there is somebody out there who, like me, does not possess this spark of genius, there you go. Motherly wisdom to fix your bad paint job.

Just do yourself a favour and bin the brush afterwards. No, really, do it. It is NOT fit to clean your dirty fixtures anymore. Don't ask how I know, just trust me on this.

Mamas' girl out, love y'all.

5 comments:

  1. Wall with the smallpox - ha! Your mum has it all going on, Steff - crafty smarts, ladder bravado, a tattoo(!) and orange headgear.

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    1. I had to do some serious shouting during the painting- the rustling and bustling in her ears was a tad distracting :D

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  2. Ohh, lovely cornice on the ceiling. Yes, I know that's not what the blog post is about, but I will be back to look at the ceiling and see if I can't make a scaled down one in Hubby's study over here. Love the head-bag. Where does Mum shop to get a classy red placky bag?

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    1. Thanks :) The cornice really is a nice feature, it sits nicely on the darkish walls and blends prettily into the white ceiling. Gotta love me an old victorian house :)
      Mum sports a Sainsburys supermarket bag, deep orange in colour and really en vogue right now. Or so I heard. Great to carry home bottles of wine and your 5 a day, too! Especially if you are absent- minded enough to leave your bag for life at home when you head out to the shops. An all- rounder, you might say!

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  3. Hilarious! Orange bag over the head :) Mothers are ALWAYS right :)

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